Information before anything else

This entire thread assumes all that is desired is Nemo without CInnamon. Not that it matters because even if installing Nemo normally, none of the dconf schemas for it seem to function. So users may as well trim the fat and stick with this method, with the knowledge that some media functions within Nemo cannot be modified.

Previous and ongoing Compiz issues between repositories

Previously, Noobslab's PPA was the only one that functioned in Wily with Compiz, at least on my machine. It never mattered what I did, how I did it, or the order of how I did it, webupd8's PPA for Nemo just had something wrong with it. Now that Xenial is out, I took another look at their PPA and it works...

Except for Zesty users who composite their desktop with Compiz. I am still looking into ths.

If you want folder colours...

If Costales' folder color extension for nemo is necessary for daily operation, this is the only PPA that allows use of his extension for some reason. That, or there is the folder-color package from webupd8's PPA. Either way gives you more folder personalization options. folder-color is in Ubuntu's Universe repo. My apologies; webupd8 has no such package to my knowledge.

If upgrading from Wily or Xenial...

If you installed Nemo 2.8 on Xenial, you can now add the new PPA for Nemo 3 and upgrade to it. The guide below shows a more thorough, albeit destructive way of doing it, but either means (upgrading from or removing 2.8) requires nemo -q, then nemo -n to relaunch it.

Introduction

If coming from Linux Mint, or if Caja is lacking in certain aspects for daily use, there's fortunately an alternative which may be more preferable. While functionally similar to Caja, Nemo provides other things of interest to some users, such as a graphical representation of volume space, zoom slider, enhanced file transfer options, a slick-looking interface provided via GTK3 (for those who care) and so on.

Finding Nemo

There are a variety of ways that one can go about obtaining Nemo. Below are steps relevant for each version of Ubuntu MATE in use;

Wily / Xenial outdated (Nemo 2.8)

Do either to add a PPA to install Nemo 2.8 from;

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/nemo (preferred)

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:noobslab/nemo

Do sudo apt-get update

Do sudo apt-get install nemo

Proceed to Other package actions that can be performed / Additional packages

Xenial post-upgrade / Yakkety pre-upgrade (Nemo 3.2)

If upgrading from Xenial, perform the following;

Unlock any locked packages for Nemo to avoid further complications.

sudo apt --purge autoremove nemo*

sudo apt rm -rf /etc/apt/sources.list.d/webupd8-ubuntu-nemo*

Add the Nemo 3.0 PPA; sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/nemo3

Do sudo apt update

Do sudo apt install nemo

Carry on below.

Other package actions that can be performed

Additional packagesThere are a bevy of other packages that can be added alongside Nemo. As listed below;

Packages that can be removedFeel free to do the following to remove Nemo's archival tool; These packages are not necessary and can be removed if a leaner system is of preference;sudo apt --purge remove nemo-fileroller file-roller

Do note; there may be some functions from file-roller that Nemo may need depending on how the file manager is used, so it might be best to keep those until is it certain they are not necessary.

Making everything else find Nemo

More terminal stuff

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/applications

The above is so xdg-mime doesn't complain about missing folders, which will now be used to make nemo the default FM:

(Most guides suggest nemo.desktop, though nemo-folder-handler.desktop works just as well and it acts exactly as caja-folder-handler does.)

Previously I said it was best to set nemo as a required component for MATE with gsettings; This is foolish if you use autorun functions from Caja, since Webupd8's Nemo package lacks the schemas it relies on for autorun to work with it.

gsettings set org.nemo.desktop can also be done, appended with the following booleen arguments:background-fadenetwork-icon-visiblevolumes-visiblecomputer-icon-visiblehome-icon-visibleshow-desktop-iconstrash-icon-visible

Use any selection, and follow with true or false for on or off. Example:gsettings set org.nemo.desktop volumes-visible true

gsettings set org.mate.background show-desktop-icons false should be done so caja can continue to run in the background, since there is no way for nemo to have media autorun functions defined.

Modifying MATE menu's Places plugin

The below steps will make it so mate-menu will open whatever xdg prefers to use. This procedure should also be done to anything else that relies solely on caja as its file manager, and the command below is only an example: Use whatever text editor is preferred;

Edit that so everything using caja as an open command uses the provided xdg binaries instead. Conveniently, programming isn't complete for it, and every single instance has a FIXME comment because the team behind the script failed to make xdg binaries as fallback. Else for those who are lazy and want it done for them, select all below and paste into places.py:

Responsible users make backups; Don't overwrite the old file, rather, save under a different filename and rename the original; the new file can be symbolically linked as `places.py, and should it be necessary to undo this change, the link can be deleted and remade to use the old file instead.

More than that is probably necessary depending on panel applets in use, but for most people it'll be all they need to bother with.

The desktop background

If it hasn't been noticed, nemo's default background is a pleasant, solid shade of blue. (In Nemo 3.x there's an XML file used instead which has pre-defined backgrounds that occasionally change.) This is because it's relying on a dconf scheme that isn't for MATE (since it's a GTK3 app, it'll rely on schemas for GNOME and Cinnamon). To change the desktop background for nemo, perform the following;gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background picture-uri file://bgpathbgpath being the file location of your image, Must begin with forward-slash.

An alternative; Symbolic link

I recently discovered that symbolic links will work for pictures, as well; just make a symbolic link to whatever image is preferred. I would recommend using ln from terminal for this; ex: ln -s ~/Pictures/myimg.png ~/Pictures/desktopbg (You can make the link named whatever you want.)

Afterward, using the above ln example, perform the following;gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background picture-uri file:///home/user/Pictures/desktopbggsettings set org.nemo.background picture-filename /home/user/Pictures/desktopbgReplace user with your user name. If you cannot see this, you can typewhoamiin a terminal, or runmate-about-meto find this.

Desktop issues with Compiz

Previously, installing Nemo via ppa:webupd8team/nemo (at least in Xenial) no longer caused a weird display issue that rendered the desktop completely unusable. This same issue has happened again in Zesty, and no amount of downgrading I've seen can resolve it. I don't know how to fix it yet, this will be updated when I do figure it out.

Terminal issues

By default, unless specified by the installation of another terminal application liketerminator, Nemo will open lxterm. To fix this, do the following;

If bookmarks are yet to be madetouch ~/.gtk-bookmarksmkdir -p ~/.config/gtk-3.0ln -s ~/.gtk-bookmarks ~/.config/gtk-3.0/bookmarks

Since they are essentially the same file, their contents can also be merged together prior to linking by duplicating the contents of one into the other. Either way, the end result is bookmarks synchronized between both file managers and also, having all bookmarks appear in places for all GTK2 menus that show it.

Undoing the above

Simple instructions are provided via this guide. Please use the contents above to remove and undo any additional files as necessary.

Nemo 3.2.0 with Unity patches and without Cinnamon dependencies is available for Ubuntu 16.04 and 16.10. To make it easy to go back to Nemo 2.8.0 for Ubuntu 16.04 users in case something doesn't work properly (because there were quite a few under the...

What is Nemo? The quick searching I did makes me think it's similar to the (sadly) defunct nautilus-elementary that I used to swear by on my netbook, but I'm really not finding anything about it. What makes it better than Caja? What are its features? Is it just a patched version of Nautilus or Files or whatever they're calling it now?

Nemo is the file manager used in the Cinnamon desktop (used in Linux Mint). It's basically a later fork of Nautilus before they started stripping features from it. Just like Caja is a Nautilus fork, but I think Caja is earlier (more within GNOME 2's times)

It's visually similar, some slight differences between them - like Nemo is GTK 3, Caja is GTK 2.

Probably far out of date in response, but you can get your desktop icons "back" by executing either caja or nemo. If you are talking about specific icons you had as part and parcel of caja, then you'll need to visit dconf-editor and look under org.nemo.desktop. If you only need gsettings strings, all of these are booleen;org.nemo.desktop show-desktop-icons (necessary for the below)org.nemo.desktop computer-icon-visibleorg.nemo.desktop home-icon-visibleorg.nemo.desktop network-icon-visibleorg.nemo.desktop trash-icon-visibleorg.nemo.desktop volumes-visible (Mounted devices)

Also, my issues have something to do with the website. My size tags no longer work in the OP.[size=20]This should be size 20, but it isn't.[/size]

I never, ever cared for bookmarks. But then it occurred to me; other people might. So I figured out how to make bookmarks display in both caja and nemo, with the beneficial side-effect of having them also show in Places menus, for whatever you use which relies on ~/.gtk-bookmarks.

So if you thought the bookmark functionality was broken, is actually is, but it's an easy fix. Also applied further corrections, and added some brief information regarding other stuff that was posted here, which was woefully missing when I thought I was finished the other sixteen times around.

Just wanted to say, you can do this for dolphin too, just skip the PPA stuff, installing Dolphin from Ubuntu's repos and use com.kde.dolphin.desktop instead of nemo-folder-handler.desktop

I was going to write a separate guide on this, when I noticed using Dolphin in a live session, the terminal would spit out a crapload of errors. Aside from installing the oxygen theme, would anyone happen to know some work-arounds for all the errors and crap that dolphin produces when used outside of KDE?

The xdg-mime command also needs application/x-mate-saved-search for saved searches made in caja to open (perhaps?) and it's missing from the xdg-mime command. Shame I couldn't, you know, edit this topic since after sixty days the topic is locked and needs to become wikified to become further editable; What the actual stupid $#%! is that about?

This is stupid; I've noticed I could not follow the same instruction set for Xenial because I encountered errors due to Webupd8 not adding Yakkety support for their PPA.

Maine in the coming months they might do it, but people don't have time for that so I included instructions to use the Xenial packages in Yakkety. It's a bit of a faff since you need to also lock the version but I will update this the moment I see Yakkety support in the PPA.

Added information about upgrade paths for users coming from Wily (should there be any), who upgrade to either Xenial or Yakkety, instructions for Yakkety users with a fresh install, attribution of sources for Nemo 3.x and touched up the formatting.